When Toronto’s executive committee reconvenes next month, residents will finally learn if one of the city’s biggest assets is up for auction.

Consultant KPMG, hired to identify ways the city can stopgap its massive $774 million deficit, suggested selling parking lots and garages owned by the Toronto Parking Authority, which annually pumps $50 million or more into the city’s operating budget.

The city-owned corporation is the largest municipal parking operator in North America, with 17,500 on-street metered parking spaces and 20,000 off-street spaces in 20 parking garages and 140 surface lots.

The corporation also nets millions for Toronto in real estate deals, recently selling its garage on Yorkville Ave. near Bay St. to a developer, who will build a highrise condo building and replace the lost parking with an underground garage.

So why would the city want to sell a goose that keeps laying golden eggs? Because, like the couple in the story, the city needs the money right now.

“We can sell the TPA because it makes money. There will be people lining up to get ahold of it,” says Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East), who was budget chief under former mayor David Miller. “But that would be one-time money,” she cautions.

During her four-year tenure, the parking authority pumped $293 million into city coffers. “The beauty of the TPA is that those are not one-time monies,” says Carroll. The money included $223 million in profits, $63 million in property taxes paid by the TPA and $6.5 million in rent for lots managed on behalf of other city departments.

The city created the parking authority in the ’50s after department stores complained customers weren’t shopping downtown because of price gouging by private lot operators, says Ian Maher, TPA’s vice-president of strategic planning and information technology.

The TPA’s mandate was to create a higher standard of parking and be self-sustaining. Today it makes a tidy profit, charging a maximum of $3.50 an hour for on-street parking and setting its lot prices — determined by the TPA board — at 75 per cent of any nearby competitor’s.

But selling the garages, as suggested by KPMG, could mean those rates go up. A private operator “will immediately triple the rates to compete with Impark and other (private) operators,” says Carroll. “And make a large amount of money.”

Chicago — facing the recession and a 2009 budget deficit — decided to lease on-street parking for 75 years to a fund led by Morgan Stanley. In return the city received close to $1.2 billion and a promise that meters would be upgraded. Earlier, the city had leased some of its parking garages for $563 million to the same fund.

However, drivers protested when the private company doubled and quadrupled hourly rates. Then drivers discovered the city’s aging meters couldn’t handle the extra quarters needed to pay the higher fees and began receiving tickets because of the equipment limitations. The old meters are slowly being replaced.

But Chicago’s new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly exploring ways to undo the deal.

In Toronto, the parking authority charges as little as $1 an hour for street parking on downtrodden retail strips, but as much as $3.50 in the downtown core. Hourly rates can be higher in its Green-P lots.

On-street rates were set in 1999, after city amalgamation, and have risen only once since then — a 50 cent increase in 2007.

Carroll thinks it’s a better idea to raise rates than privatize the garages. “KPMG was extremely limited in the scope that they could look at. And what they didn’t look at was: What are our rates?” says Carroll. “Do we need to change them?”

The city also doesn’t need outside money to upgrade its meters. Right after amalgamation, the TPA started installing solar-powered on-street pay-stations. The stations were easy to install and so the city put in more of them. Not only that, but credit card use went through the roof, says Carroll, and that reduced the number of physical visits to the machines to remove cash.

The parking authority is currently conducting a comprehensive city-wide rate review, says Maher, and they could go up in some areas of the city as early as next year. Although the maximum rate for on-street parking is set out in a bylaw, it could easily change if council approved an increase.

Location, location, location….

The city’s Toronto Parking Authority may offer reduced rates, but one of North America’s biggest private parking companies says it doesn’t look at municipal operators as competition.

And that’s because the number one consideration for drivers who want parking is location.

“We operate in a fairly free market and it’s easy to see that the customer’s buying decision is made, number one, on location,” says Julian Jones, senior vice-president of business development at Impark, North America’s largest private parking operator. The company was part of a consortium that considered bidding on the Chicago lease, but didn’t do so in the end.

But he says the second consideration is price, and it’s what municipal and private operators alike use to ensure there are always spaces open for new customers.

“We’re parking as many short-stay cars as people want to park,” says Ian Maher, TPA’s vice-president of strategic planning and information technology. “Unfortunately, we have to charge higher rates than we need to in order to turn the spaces around. So we do generate a substantial amount of profits.”

And even with a cap of $3.50 an hour for on-street parking, and a mandate to offer lower rates in its lots than private operators, Maher says the city-owned corporation is doing well.

“It’s our impression, and it’s difficult to prove this because it’s a secret industry, is that on a per-space basis we’re probably doing better than or at least equal to the competitors,” says Maher.

Vancouver commuters shocked at how much their parking rates have increased this year may or may not take comfort in learning that their rates are still not the nation’s highest.

That honour belongs to Calgary, where the median monthly cost for an unreserved space runs $472.50 a month, up 4.2 per cent from 2010, according to Colliers International’s 11th annual world parking survey, released Wednesday.

After Calgary comes Toronto, then Montreal. Downtown Vancouver, however, jumped to fourth most expensive from fifth in 2010, thanks to an eightper-cent increase in the median monthly price for an unreserved stall, due largely to the harmonized sales tax. The increase put downtown Vancouver’s rates at a median of $288.

“When the survey was done this year in June, it obviously captured the implementation of the HST, which is an added seven per cent,” said Kirk Kuester, managing director of Colliers International’s Vancouver office.

The HST, however, is calculated on rates after TransLink’s regional parking tax is added on to prices. So the total tax portion of that median parking price has risen to 35.52 per cent compared with 27.05 per cent, said James Lang, Colliers’ director of research in Vancouver.

The minimum rate Colliers encountered in its survey of office buildings in Vancouver’s central business district was $169 per month for an unreserved stall. The highest price it saw was $500 per month, with an average of $300.

Kuester doesn’t see many reasons for downtown parking rates to climb much higher.

“I would say that with TransLink and the massive improvement the city is experiencing in terms of transit, and the continued urbanization -people moving to the downtown core [and] living where they work, I just believe the demand-side of our market has reached at or near peak.”

In an interview, Kuester said that in recent tours of new residential buildings in downtown Vancouver, he has noticed fewer occupied parking stalls, which indicates to him that more people choosing to live downtown are also forgoing cars altogether.

“I don’t really see how [parking] rents can go a whole lot further in the downtown core at this point in time.”

It’s a different picture from conditions in price-leading Calgary, where a lot more people drive.

“Calgary is Calgary,” he said. “People live in their cars. They ignore transit and don’t care how tight parking is, they just want to park.”

Calgary’s parking rates put it second to only New York City, with a median rate of $541 US per month, as the most expensive city to leave a car in North America, according to the Colliers report.

Canadian prices are still a long way off the most expensive markets, however.

Colliers ranked London City as the most expensive place to park in the world at $1,084 US a month.

London’s West End was a close second at $1,014 US and Zurich third at $822 US, with Hong Kong and Tokyo at $744 US per month rounding out the world’s top five priciest parking markets.

No North American cities cracked the top 10 globally.

depenner@vancouversun.com

CANADIAN PARKING RATES

Median monthly parking rates in Canada, with percentage change since last year in brackets:

The City of Vancouver is peddling scores of new parking spaces for electric scooters and motorcycles.

But don’t think the spots are there to raise big revenue — the parking comes free or at a reduced price depending on your ride, and is in place to support Vancouver’s green initiatives.

Drivers of electric scooters don’t have to pay a penny to park in the spaces, which are identified by green-topped meters and unique parking signs.

Motorcycles and gas-powered mopeds can park for a reduced rate when riders pay by phone, but they lose that 50 per cent discount when the spot is paid by coin.

If you’re wondering why scooters park for free, but you have to pay to park your Hummer, well, it all comes down to emissions. The city is pushing for commuters to rely on environmentally-friendly and low carbon-emitting transportation options as part of its bid to be the world’s greenest city by 2020.

More than 150 new spots are already in place throughout the city and another 50 are scheduled to be built by the end of the year.

Sharing is allowed, but only if all the bikes fit within the designated parking space.

As you’re reading this we are currently updating Park ‘in’ Spot just in time for summer!

BEACH! Did someone say beach?!

Who doesn’t like hanging out at the beach?! Better yet, hanging out at the beach WHILE parked for FREE?! SCORE!

We are aware of sign changes, additional parking meters being installed, and parking lot rate hikes. We are making a great effort in having the most up-to-date locations & rates available to you right in the palm of your hands.

Park ‘in’ Spot shows you the locations of Parking meters with rates, Free street parking, and Public Parking lots with rates. With the use of your GPS you can quickly locate free or cheapest parking around you.

As more and more new poles are being put up in the most popular areas of Vancouver ready to be occupied by fresh parking meters, it makes it difficult to find cheap parking.

This is a picture taken of a new parking meter pole on Main Street just before the Georgia Viaduct entrance heading southbound. Many poles like these also have recently been placed by the city along “The Drive” (Commercial Street) where parking used to be FREE.

Although this may have it’s advantages and disadvantages many people do not want to spend more on top of the already high gas prices just to enjoy a day out.

FACT: Vancouver parking meters can range from $1/hr – $6/hr

For many of us that are short on time and find that searching for cheaper to possibly even FREE parking is a waste of time, we urge you to think again.

At A Step Above Apps we’ve created an iPhone Application that contains many of the up-to-date locations of Free Street Parking space, Public Parking Lots & Rates, and the cities Parking Meters location & Rates.

Though the use of your GPS function on the iPhone, finding parking is soon to be a breeze!